New Article Published at Perspectives on Politics

The article "A Trump Effect on the EU's Popularity? The U.S. Presidential Election as a Natural Experiment", co-authored with Lara Minkus and Jan Delhey, is now published online-first at Perspectives on Politics. In the paper, we treat Trump's unexpected victory as an external shock and use a Eurobarometer survey that was conducted in all EU-28 member states four days prior to (control group) and six days after the election (treatment group) as source material for a natural experiment. The analysis reveals that the election of Trump caused a significant increase in the EU’s popularity in Europe immediately after the election. This “Trump effect” is considerable in size, roughly equivalent to three years of education. Gains in popularity were particularly high among respondents who perceived their country as economically struggling and, surprisingly, among the political right, suggesting that Trump’s victory broadened and ideologically diversified the EU’s base of support.  We also show that no such effect occurred when Obama was re-elected as U.S. president in 2012.

The article can be freely accessed here. A blog post summarizing the main findings has been published at the London School of Economics's United States Politics and Policy blog.